I'm 28, and a coworker and I were busted big time when our "private" chats were made public. We had, in our frustration, lambasted everyone in our company. We both apologized profusely, and our managers decided the best thing to do was to move forward in a professional manner.

I've learned my lesson. But now I'm in a situation where I have lost my best friend (the coworker I chatted with) and have become persona non grata in my company. I can't understand why my coworker is still being treated with respect and is acknowledged by everyone, whereas I'm ignored, even when I initiate polite greetings. I don't feel that what I wrote (as terrible and shameful as it was) was any more awful than what my coworker wrote.

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So why am I the only one getting the cold shoulder? Our company is small, only about 50 people, but we dominate our niche market. I'm the sales and marketing administrative assistant, and I want to be here. I express it every day to my manager by keeping my nose to the grindstone and focusing on my work. But how do I get through this? We exist in an open-cubicle environment, and I am losing it! —Why Is She Better Than Me?

I will pause here for you to put down this beautiful ELLE and frantically reread all the e-mails and chats you sent today.

Fine. Now let's pull you out of your quagmire and put you back on your feet. The strong woman does not do anything so feeble as merely "initiate polite greetings." No. We must call in the big weapon: stationery. Run and get your box of stylish note cards. Good. Take a card. (Is it thicker than a butter plate? Excellent. MIT research shows that the heavier the writing paper you use, the more seriously your message will be taken.) Second, fill a fountain pen with gray ink (more serious than black). Select a coworker who hates you, and write to him or her that you're an idiot, a misguided fathead, a blot on humanity who's made every mistake in the book (if you're going to bow, as the Chinese proverb says, "bow low"), and sign off with a short, candid tribute to something about his or her character that you honestly admire and from which you intend to learn. Follow this procedure with the next 49 persons at your company—including the brass. (Weirdly, many executives prefer promoting a person who rises from the muckheap of her mistakes and turns things around over a person who doesn't muck up at all.)

Third, after slipping, for the sake of elegance, each apology into its little tissue-lined envelope, shimmy into work early one morning before anyone arrives and place the envelopes on desks. If it were me, I'd attach a macadamia-nut cookie, because though it will be difficult for a coworker to continue totally detesting you after reading a note admiring her character, it will be impossible if it's attached to a macadamia-nut cookie.

PS: I can't absolutely guarantee that this will get you as well liked as your friend…but then, Elizabeth Cady Stanton neglected at the first Women's Rights Convention in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, to call for "all women to be loved equally at the office."